The traditionally tricky areas are graphics (does it need non-free drivers or are there decent FOSS drivers; combinations like nvidia optimus (notebooks) can be extremely frustrating) and wlan hardware (which got significantly better over the last two years). For desktop systems, everything else "should" just work - although there can always be surprises…

Notebooks, with their highly integrated hardware and strong emphasis for 'perfect' powermanagement are typically more complex, but should -in general- work as well.

Without further details about what you have in mind, it's hard to give proper advice though. Considering today's harddisk sizes I do recommend to get a mainboard with UEFI support (I'm not talking about secure boot, just plain UEFI - which is mandatory to boot from harddisks exceeding 2 TB).

Unless the intent is to build a gaming machine, go with Intel graphics.

I run the FOSS ATI driver on my desktop because I have a triple-head setup. It's functional, but only minimally so. The non-free driver isn't an option from my perspective. It breaks so often it's not worth considering. (That goes for nVidia as well.)

I use integrated Intel graphics in my HTPC. It can play 1080p video without even breaking a sweat.

I do have Optimus graphics in my laptop, but am lucky enough that the hardware defaulted to the integrated Intel graphics. They've worked flawlessly since day 1. I even turned on the Desktop Effects (which are smooth and beautiful) just so that when people ask me what OS I'm running I can show it off.

When I build my next desktop after Haswell comes out, I'm going to see if I can find a motherboard that supports triple-head so I can run Intel graphics instead of moving the old ATI card over.

In case I haven't said it enough: go with Intel graphics. They are hands down the best choice for FOSS graphics.

As slh said, if you give us a few more details, we can give better suggestions.

_________________#aptosid-art ftw!
(what would cleary do?)

drb

Post subject:Posted: 12.09.2012, 08:26

Joined: 2010-09-11
Posts: 96

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I'm in the process of selecting items for a new desktop. Are there any issues with an SSD hard drive for the OS?

slh

Post subject:Posted: 12.09.2012, 15:59

Joined: 2010-08-25
Posts: 954

Status: Offline

No, just go for it and fstrim your SSD mountpoints semi-regularly (something between once a day and weekly --> cron), instead of using the discard mount option (which might slow down operations and some SSD firmwares are claimed not like discard).

drb

Post subject:Posted: 12.09.2012, 16:16

Joined: 2010-09-11
Posts: 96

Status: Offline

Thanks for that. I hadn't considered that as being an issue!

DeepDayze

Post subject:Posted: 12.09.2012, 20:16

Joined: 2010-09-11
Posts: 616
Location: USA
Status: Offline

slh wrote:

No, just go for it and fstrim your SSD mountpoints semi-regularly (something between once a day and weekly --> cron), instead of using the discard mount option (which might slow down operations and some SSD firmwares are claimed not like discard).

Good tip slh..didn't see anything about fstrim for SSD's will remember that tip when setting up SSD's as a boot drive (or data drive) I could fstrim the SSD when shutting down or when idle. Does fstrim run long or take up a lot of CPU?

I've no advice with regards to the specific question. My experience is however that usage patterns may change over time so allow for some room: get things slightly bigger than needed (power, number of usb connections, harddisk bays, etc.).

That said, be wary of the trap of spending just a little bit more to get a little bit more on several items with the result of ending greatly over budget. The difference between a device capable of 20 something and another capable of 30 something may be financially negligible but that goes for all parts; a little bit of overspending on many items still leads to a lot of overspending in total.

In practice, you have to treat mainboard, CPU and RAM as a single entity these days. Because by the time it would make sense to upgrade one of them, the CPU socket and/or RAM norm will have changed, making an upgrade no longer economically feasible.